Christmas continued...

The Sunday before Christmas I had the girls sit in front of the tree at church after the service and take some pictures. We just have no time to do it at home before we leave.

Laurel asked if I would take some pictures of her kids too and so here they are and they are just too cute!!!

Ty, Micah and Lilian
Nick, Anna and Addie

Christmas at Granny's began our count down. We had dinner there on Tuesday night, lunch with mom on Wednesday morning and dinner in Hogwaller on Wednesday night. We were exhausted by the time we got home. Thank goodness for Nestle "break apart and bake."

Oh this brings back memories!!!

I cannot get Addie to stop squinting when she smiles. I can't see her beautiful eyes. It cracks me up every time!!


The whole gang

Christmas at Nana's...

After Nana's, a trip to Walhalla and then we headed home to get ready for Santa....

Before....

(We had a sweet friend make us some reindeer cookies and Anna wanted to save one for Santa.)

...and after

...to be continued again.

Here today....gone tomorrow.

I can't believe that Christmas has come and gone already...as does everything these days. Don't you just wish you could stop time so they didn't get another minute older. And so I begin to recap, because I have been so incredibly busy and have neglected to do a post on Christmas. It begins with...

...Christmas parties

Addie's class party
They each got the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" from Ms. Misty


Anna...

& Ms. Estes 1st grade class


After school that day, I decided to take the girls to see Santa. The girls were already dressed in their Christmas attire so we headed to the mall. Not just the mall in Spartanburg, but HAYWOOD MALL where the "real" Santa is. (Those of you that are local, know the difference between the Westgate Santa and the Haywood Santa :) hahaha What was I thinking??? What every other mom was thinking. We'll get there before all the kids get out of school. Well, when we got there Santa was on his 2 hour lunch break so at 1:50 the line was 2 1/2 hours long. Not happening!!! The only way to avoid that was good ole Build-a-Bear. Now when Anna was little and this was new, it was fun. Now I know what happens to these $30 stuffed animal....they sit in a corner never to be touched again. So needless to say, we don't frequent Build-a-Bear too often anymore. This was Addie's first trip that she actually could comprehend what was going on so she had a blast and that's why I took the pictures.



this is a picture of Anna arguing with me about which animal to pick. I of course wanted her to get a Christmas Moose. With it being Christmas and all!! And I had to remind myself who we were there for.

Addie and her Christmas Moose. She named her "Christmas Tree." How fitting.

A nice lady, who was also a mother, offered to take our picture together.

Addie had a meltdown after we left. It seems that Christmas Tree changed her mind about her outfit and wanted another one. I had to use this as a teaching moment. I just wish she hadn't thrown herself down on the floor of the MALL!! Disgusting I know!!

Anna and Emma (we ran into her and mom) watched as all the crazy people waited in the long line to see Santa. Lesson learned: go way early next year!!!

to be continued......

Meet "Scoot"

This is one of Addie's Christmas presents from Santa. Her scooter which she named "Scoot." She rides her scooter everywhere. To the potty, to her bedroom, to the table for breakfast. I call her name and she comes blazing in on her scooter. This morning at the table, I look down and of course there is Scoot and Maggie is licking grits off of it. I said, "Addie, did you spill your grits?" and she said, "No, I just gave Scoot a bite."

...and then she decides Scoot needs another bite.

Later that afternoon, the girls and I piled in the car to go to the mud pit and get some fresh air. We had not seen the cousins since Santa came and wanted to meet Snowball #2. (I say #2 because #1 is in hamster heaven. The boys found him yesterday morning very, very still and so Beaver (that's their dad) decided he should go to PetSmart to get another one....one that wasn't so still...one that was a little more lively if you know what I mean. Anyway, the kids played in the mud for some time and then we all went to our house for a sleep over....and a bath!!

Riley, Reid, Hannah, Anna and Addie

We spent most of the night on the Wii. (Some pics of the kids bowling.)

Great form!!

Even little Addie is a tough one to beat!!

The end of a long hard day of play....sweet dreams!!

Merry Christmas from the Nicholsons!

a singer and a ballet dancer

In the last few days since I have not posted, alot has happened to post about. Saturday morning we had a dress rehearsal for the preschool choir who would sing in church on Sunday morning. Here Addie is singing....or is she doing the chicken dance?

... after practice we had a pizza party...

...and after pizza we gathered in the hallway to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and blow out the candles on His cake. The kids all wanted to know how old He was???


As you can see, Addie is tired of me taking her picture.

Nick and Anna at church the next morning.

She really looks enthused. We didn't get good pictures. Still trying to figure out the settings on my camera. We did get a good video though. The kids did a great job. It was really cute to watch!
After church Anna and I went to see the Nutcracker at Converse. My little sister,Emma, is one of the "cherubs" and we go every year to watch her. Anna tells me she wants to be in the Nutcracker one day. Does she actually realize she has to take ballet? She really does love it. Me, not so much. I go for Emma and Anna's entertainment. I am just not a fan of ballet. Anyway, here are some pictures:

We usually finish off by picking out an $8 Nutcracker on sale for $16 which usually gets broken within the day. And sure enough, it broke when we got it home. I just can't get her to understand that it is for display and that it will not actually crack nuts!! Some superglue should do the trick. All joking aside, I really look forward to this because its just Anna and me time!!

All tuckered out...

I have two busy days to post about, but I am just too tired and my brain won't work. Last night my laptop decided to act up (Rhonda, I need your dad's #) and tonight I am beat!! I thought I was supposed to feel rested, refreshed, rejuvenated after the weekend. I am so behind!! I will post pics tomorrow. Until then, have a good night's rest. I know I will.

Drenched!!

No, I'm not speaking of all the wonderful rain we had these past couple of days. Although I do have to give a big thank you to my hubby who put our screens on our windows a few weeks ago. I was able to do one of my favorite things. Lift the windows and listen to the rain. Heavenly!! When I say drenched, I am talking about my sweet Addie. Someone please help!! I am in need of some good advice. She has been potty-trained for quite some time now. Almost a year to be exact. However in the last couple of weeks, she has decided that going pee pee is much too inconvenient and she would just rather go on about her activities than to stop and use the potty. So what am I left with...alot of laundry. Thank goodness its only the pee pee part. I just don't know what to do. I will look up and notice her face beet red, eyes watering, back arched and she's doing the dance. I order her to the bathroom and she goes. And it's like ok mom and thanks for letting me know. But I don't always catch her though and this is when the floodgates open. This evening she said, "Mom where's my panties because I want to put on some beautiful ones?" Like I'm not supposed to know that she is hiding her undies so I won't know she's wet them.

Here are some pics from earlier in the summer. Amber and Beaver are building an addition and they are living in one big mud hole right now. One day we just let the kids go! It had just rained the day before and they were dying to play in the mud and here is how it turned out.

In case you can't tell, these are my nephews, Riley and Reid.

not so bad

If there is such a thing....best stomach virus we've ever had. Anna only got sick once. It's been two days since it started and Addie and I are bug-free. Yah!!! I am beginning to wonder if it was a bug or not. Any way, we enjoyed our day in. In these pictures the girls got all dressed up and came in to the kitchen and said, "Guess what we are?" To give you a little background info, the shirts they are wearing (courtesy of Emma's hand-me-downs) are Limited Too RHINESTONE tanks. Another piece of important info is the music that you can't hear. They put on their Hannah Montana cd. Can you guess? "We're ROCK STARS mom!"

Today Addie got in the car after school. If you could have seen the pride gleaming in her eyes!! I asked how school was and she quickly replied, "I have homework today mom." She is in 3k at my church, AMRBC. I said, "Oh you do?" and she said, "Yes, I have homework today." I pulled out her folder and made a huge deal of the assignment that I found in her bag. We went to Walmart to get some special glitter glue and crafts for her homework assignment. She was beside herself. Will this continue??? I know that it's hard to see, but she had to cut out the gift box and inside she had to draw a picture of a gift to give. She chose to give it to her big sis and she gave her a princess. And a very beautiful princess I might add. We had to fold over the flap and decorate it like wrapping paper. Let's just say we will be lucky if all the glitter glue dries by tomorrow. What innocence....or should I say naivety.

My poor hubby left Washington State at 7am this morning. It is now 12:30am and he is not home. Let's just say this was not a good day for flying. If you ask him, no day is good for that. He had 3 legs and all were delayed!! He will not be a happy camper when he gets home. Do I even need to say thank goodness the weekend is here!!!